Estate Tax
In response to the following assertion in the Seattle PI:
Senators must choose between the interests and welfare of 99.7 percent of Americans or a tiny group of the superwealthy.
The reason that the estate tax is bad is precisely because it only effects a small minority of the population. When the majority of citizens can require taxes that the majority will never have to pay and only a select few will have to pay it, it is a tyranny, even if those effected happen to be rich. I for one could support a flat estate tax on everyone's estate if it effected everyone to an equal percentage, but I do not support selective taxation on small groups.
It is interesting that so many people who are presumably liberal support a system of tyranny of the majority when it comes to this issue without reflection that much of the civil rights we have today came about by defeating majoritarian self-interest in favor of protecting the minority.
If selective punitive taxation can stand against this group, what other minorities can we target?
posted by Jrudkis @ 10:36 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
It seems to me that your argument could apply just as easily to the income tax. What percentage of households have an annual income greater than $319K? I would imagine well under 5%, a small minority, which would be subject to the maximum marginal tax rate.
I think there is a larger discussion of the entire tax code in which a discussion of the estate tax can become moot, but for argument's sake, we can preserve that larger discussion for another time and focus solely on the estate tax within the context of the existing tax code, which can be assumed static with the exception suggested changes to the estate tax.
I might agree with you that a flat estate tax would be fairer than the existing scheme when considered in a vacuum, without respect to its larger economic effects beyond those directly on affected estates, though that doesn't necessarily mean that a flat estate tax would be better for society. There's also the matter of determining the proper rate of that tax, but I suppose that could be managed, if painfully. In my estimation, a rate sufficient to prevent inordinate concentrations wealth among a very few, yet not unreasonably burdensome to the rest would be the goal.
With all that said, the problem I have with your post is not so much in its substance, but its rhetoric. Characterizing the estate tax as tyrrany is a stretch. Usually one considers things like indiscriminate arrests, disallowing political discourse, systematic starvation and other such nastiness when one thinks of tyrrany. Taxing the estates of dead people just doesn't cut the mustard for me.
And that the tax applies only to a small minorty and is imposed upon it by a majority assumes that the minority upon which the tax is imposed is the same minority opposed to the tax. What of the wealthy liberals who are tyrranically in favor of imposing the estate tax upon themselves?
I would suggest letting a good idea stand on its own without the hyperbole.
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